Prerequisites

Figure 1-1 presents a plausible introduction along with an overall view of what may be considered the educational system. Further details of the process are given in ensuing chapters.

When did man's education start? One may say that education has a religious basis. This statement prompts further explanation of the aspects of two different systems in which man lives (one's decision to be a believer or a nonbeliever). Both require education. It will not be adequate to enhance society positively to any significant degree in regard to sustaining a moral and advancing society in a positive manner in either system without man being well educated. Whether one agrees when man started his education, he definitely did when he came into existence.

It can be philosophized that man either does not exist or he does. If he does not, that is the end of the story. Since man is convinced he is a living creature, then he must exist. Having a mind, man theorized that he lives in a system he calls the world, which is a part of the universe, a master system. Man is confined to his systems. In system 1 he is a believer and in system 2 he is a nonbeliever. Man set forth premises, hypotheses, and postulates from which he derived the two systems in which he can live. He recognized that he could and would change from one to the other, because of certain circumstances experienced. A significant point about man is that he was born to be bad and has to learn to be good.

It is critical to understand that the degree to which a person is educated is highly probable that it relates to the type life the person will have, or one's life is a function of their level of education attained. This is not to say that education is the only factor. It definitely is an essential one. Without it, what would the world be like?

Being successful in life is the aspiration of everyone. Success can come in many different ways. In looking into the ways, success first must be defined. Is it attaining wealth, being happy, or being both; or being satisfied with status quo? It can be different depending on the person, and it can change during one's lifetime. The point is success is important to everyone, and they want it.

There are numerous factors upon which success depends. These include one or more of the following honest ways:

1. The degree of education attained,

2. A person's I.Q.

3. Understanding that a person is responsible for their livelihood throughout their adult life and maybe before adulthood,

4. Market opportunities that come one's way that relate to a person's abilities and skills,

5. Recognizing an opportunity,

6. Willing to take a risk in pursing an opportunity,

7. Confidence in one's self,

8. Mental and physical health,

9. Person's mind set, i.e. willingness to undergo disappoints, failures, tough times, etc., and not to give up,

10. Winning a lottery,

11. Receiving an Inheritance,

12. Marrying into wealth, and

13. Knowing the right people.

Smart is the accumulation of knowledge in ones memory for future recall. This can be impressive and to an extent worthwhile. Without knowledge one would not be able to accomplish much of anything of significance. Intelligence is the ability to take knowledge stored and process it to provide positive and significant results for humanity, our nation, and the world, notwithstanding themselves providing they use other attributes they possess. Now, "What is the difference between genius and stupidity?" Albert Einstein said it best with, "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." Exemplary of stupidity could be, "How can a robust nation be so purely lead and managed that in a little over 6 years its futher is dismal? Exemplary of genius has its limits (Chapter 3) is man's inability to determine how the world and its universe were created.

Man's ability to communicate and his creativeness, dedication, and work principles were a basis for his ability to achieve his mental and physical advancements overtime.

Now that it is known when education started and where education had its roots. However, more is to be known about education, which is given in subsequent chapters.

First, it is prudent to become familiar with two systems of life here on this earth and specifically understand why religion is the backbone of education. The two systems are quite similar in manifold ways, yet significantly different. In system 1 man believes in God and that He created the universe. In system 2, man does not believe this, which is frequently termed a nonbeliever.

System 1 is a well-structured system where man believes the universe and everything in it was created by God and is supported by four primary pillars: creation, order, rational reality, and fear (fear of not going to have an everlasting life rather than to be frightened.) Important factors that separates system 1 from system 2 are related to man in system 1 where man believes he should have complete respect for the nonbeliever's viewpoint about God; God grieves for all people; the nonbeliever is a mystery to him; when a nonbeliever is in a dark room and the light is turned on, he sees no joy in it, whereas the believer sees joy in the light; and dissatisfaction does not mean disrespect. In the System 2 man believes: all proof of God and what He created is left up to the believer, whereas he does not have to prove that there was no God and He created the universe; and he does not have to prove anything about what he believes. The nonbeliever does not believe that belief in God is spirited.

It is not to be misunderstood that all people who live in system I are Christians and that all people who live in system 2 are not good people and live a life similar in most all aspect of that of a Christian. No indeed, but it can say that it is important for a civilized nation to sustain itself it must have a well-educated populace. Knowledge is of immense importance. A positive example of this is the United States of America.

Perhaps the importance of believing can be explained by an example, which is about the flag of the United States of America. It just became an inseparable part of many – a feeling of love. It is real, and they truly respected it. They are very proud of their feelings. They would defend the flag verbally or physically, and they have and will continue to do so. But why is there any question? Maybe it is because the Stars and Stripes – the Colors – the flag is a symbol for which America stands -- liberty, freedom, and justice for all its citizens. It stands for unity, peace, selflessness, trust, strength, might, endurance, opportunity, service, hope, respect, faith, and love. It stands for all the good things of life. In its way, it is like the sun that rises in the morning and sets in the evening, and at all times provides substances for the people – their health of mind, body, and soul. It exists so they can live, learn, work, exercise, and relax in abeyance with their principles and the will of a government that is based on a constitution written by their forefathers who were inspired by their Creator and was for and about a government that empowers its people to execute their, "the peoples will" – not an individual's, special individuals', or special organized groups' who have only self interest in mind and disrespect for the Constitution of the United States of America. In a way, it could represent our maker and that is why so many love and respect it and are not ashamed of it or ashamed to mention its name.

Our flag flies high, high above for the whole world to see and admire. As it waves to all, "goodwill," in the winds, it also says to everyone, "Hello!. ... I would like to be your friend. I love you."

Mentioning the flag is not to mean it should be an idol. Rather, it means believing in something with all one's mind, heart, and body. Respecting it gives thanks that one lives for what it stands, and more, including giving thanks for providing peace, comfort, and a sincere desire to obey and do what is right and proper.

The majority of the nation's people respect proper education, and believe it is keenly important and definitely required for conducting a responsible and rewarding way of life, not withstanding it is a privilege and a duty to do so and without it a society could become an uncivilized one, or one approaching that.

Introduction

History tells the world that there has never been a nation's government that lasted as long as the republic of the United States of America. Although it is still the best nation in the world, it is slowly travelling the road to its demise. In less than 250 years, it rose to be the greatest nation on its planet. Logical thinking says that there are valid reasons for this success. The basic one is its people cared about their nation and its future. They were fearless and moral people who appreciate what past generations had done for them, and they were dedicated to have that tradition continue. However, in the previous several decades or so, the nation, through a few, silently worked to shift the nation toward a socialistic society. As this momentum monotonically infiltrated the pillars of the nation and the foundation upon which these pillars were solidly constructed slowly eroded by infiltrating high government offices, the poor, the weak-in-mind and spirit, uneducated, the promiscuous, and the evil, as well as gullible individuals all who went on their merry way letting the few who were always there to do for them what they should being doing for themselves. Yes, there are those from within the nation as well as outside the nation that want the U.S. to die away or care less if it does, which is believed to be of their ignorance, which being uneducated is one of the primary reasons.

There are many factors that have been responsible for and enabled the nation to be the greatest the world has ever known. These are the nation's major pillars and their foundation previously mentioned. However, earthly speaking, the key factor is the individual who is being well educated, and herein is the key to the nation's turn-around and were it is heading. Public education is decaying and it must be revived.

Because education, a primary pillar of the nation is crumbling, and in the process crushing the nation, is the fundamental reason for this book. Hopefully it draws peoples' attention to the root cause for the direction the nation is headed and the nation again becomes a united society "Of the People" working "For the People" to bring back its Constitution, law and order, morality, it's military might, its will, its God-given rights and not those self-interest rights wanted by those who are not willing to be responsible for their lives (Those who may be termed leaches to be polite.), but want the freedom and liberty others worked and fought so had to attaint and maintain for them. This root cause is that too many people of the nation are not receiving a good education, and many receive inadequate, if any at all.

Education is a complex subject. Educating is a complex process. Each is a difficult undertaking of inherent viabilities in the current processes, some of which include:

1. Facility/equipment availability,

2. Government needs,

3. Human variability,

4. Leaders,

5. Local needs,

6. Morality,

7. Financing,

8. Personal need,

9. Religion,

10. Science and technological changes,

11. Teachers,

12. Unions,

13. Managers, and

14. Administrators.

An overall simplified view of a process of education is given in Table 2-1.

An essential part of the process is the leader-follower relationship, which is shown graphically in Figure 2-1.

An educated society must have healthy and strong roots. Two vitally important ones are education and morality. Without these fundamental fibers, a free and civilized society will diminish, perhaps slowly but for certainty. Therefore, one can conjecture that man must learn to be good. A majority of Americans understand that morality today is becoming increasing bad. It appears that today on many moral issues the minority rules to which a large portion of other people would agree. How can this downward trend in morality be reversed? What else could it be except from learning to be good? And, how is that done? This will is up to our leaders and the people. Young people need to be taught by their families, proper schooling, religious organizations, appropriate experience, members of religious organizations, and well educated associates, friends, etc.

What has been previously stated leads to several conclusions. First it is now known, where, and how education began – at man's beginning. Salient conclusions are: 1) man is basically bad and must learn to be good and 2) man has the appropriate abilities to advance in numerous ways.

Now that than it has been ascertained by premise that man can learn, which unquestionably is widely accepted as a fact, what is a process that will be of considerable assistance in hastening his ability to learn? It is called education, which is the thesis of these herein writings.

Since man is a very complex entity, it naturally follows that education is likewise complex, but to a lesser degree. This complexity will be born out the further one gets into education as a process, and that is truly what it is, and a time-varying one at that. A simple definition of the word education is a noun that generally is understood to encompass teaching and learning. Although education is a complex process or processes of fundamental importance to an individual, society in manifold aspects, and the strength of our nation, "How so?" one may ask. The answer is a principal reason for this writing. This is done in ensuing chapters. Appendix 1 gives some thoughts of the public about the nation's educational system today. They are not flattering.

The objective of education is to develop to the fullest people's capabilities so that they can be responsible for their lives in so far as their capabilities allow. Education is a simple-in-theory process that starts with the parent(s) for an individual at the beginning of the infant's life, recognizing the important item that the person's mind is quite receptive at the child's early ages of birth to five to seven years old. The involvement of the parent diminishes with time. However, this is not given to infer that the parents are released from any further responsibility for their children. In the contrary, since their parents bought them into this world, they are responsible for them when their child (children) is in need. When the children become adults, they are responsible unless they are unable to help in case of need. Then the parents are responsible to extent possible. If they cannot help, the responsibility rests with other family members, their friend (who cannot continually serve in this role), their church, charitable organizations, local government, state, county, and then Federal government as the last resort. It is an upward responsibility, not one from the top down which apparently is the current governmental standpoint.

The education starting point is the individual. What else could it be? This is the reason so much emphasis should be placed on family environment and the parent being a parent first, a friend second, teaching them 8Rs (Chapter 4) and recognizing what the value education will mean for their children. Their educational progress must be thoroughly evaluated on a continuing basis at home as well as at school, certainly until the student is in the workplace and responsible for his life and livelihood.

The parents should ensure their children that as their education progresses and they should expect to be evaluated by on standard achievement tests, and they should not expect any political politeness, because passing a person who does not deserve to pass is an injustice to the person and society as well. If they do not meet the requirements for advancement they can expect to fail the grade or subject and may have to redo that grade if in elementary school or if they fail it in high school, to fail the subject. The student should be expected determine and understand the reasons why they failed, even if they had not been told, accept the consequences as a positive and work diligently thereafter to do the very best their abilities will enable them to do. It they do not, it will come to haunt them in later life.

Education has been an aspect of the life of man, knowingly or not, since his beginning, advancing in numerous ways as the clock ticked along. Perhaps the momentum increased both formally and informally in the United States starting from the seventeen hundreds progressing from the Colonial days to the present day. It went through various changes, sometime reinventing procedures or systems. It underwent positive changes for those times in history. The changes were made by the appropriate authority for public education to be undertaken, by whom, and how it was to be carried out. Some of the significant times of change were going through eras of segregation and integration, reform, and progressiveness.